Total revolutions, totally thoughtless – part 2

Logically speaking, either caste reservations are effective in breaking the cycle of caste inequities, or they are not. If they are, then they have been in existence for half a century and should have been efficacious by now. There is therefore a case for them to be abolished. And if they are not, then we should be looking for other means for levelling the social playing field anyway.

But as I argued in part 1, from the point of view of total revolutionaries objections on reasonable grounds — be they empirical findings or simply the logical inconsistency of the argument can be dispensed with through the simple expedient of calling those voicing objections names.

That’s a manouevre familiar from totalitarian Marxist thinking: if you’re not with us, you must be with our bourgeois enemies. Popperian grounds of falsifibiality of valid arguments aren’t applicable here. And the ad hominem fallacy is rampant: don’t attack the argument, but attack the person making it. It’s similar to how Team Anna has dealt with criticism: if you’re not with the Jan Lokpal, then you must be with the corrupt.

Doubts can also be met by aggressively expanding the domain of a failed strategy, no matter what the cost. So, when communist agriculture policies were failing in the early Soviet Union Stalin ordered the collectivisation of agriculture, a blow from which Soviet agriculture never really recovered. It meant that the USSR would become dependent on grain imports from the ‘imperialist’ enemy, the United States, in order to feed itself – despite possessing vast tracts of fertile agricultural land.

Likewise, the failure of reservations has meant its expansion in several directions. Following the Mandal agitation, reservations for OBCs came into being. More and more castes and social groups are carving out job quotas for themselves – it no longer has anything to do with being underprivileged, but rather with how assertive and politically powerful your particular identity group is. Thus, the original intention behind reservations has inverted itself.

Now, the constitution is likely to be amended to push reservations not just in jobs but promotions as well. This would create a three-track, heavily politicised bureaucracy where merit has no place. If you thought governance is bad today, just think about the impact on governance of having, effectively, three tracks within the bureaucracy – one for SC/STs, one for OBCs and one for others. This could multiply as the number of lobbies multiply. If you thought the government treated us as infants soon there will soon be several categories of infants, each penned up in their respective nurseries. And we will begin to look like South Africa under apartheid. The only question, really, is how far we go down this calamitous path before it’s reversed and common sense prevails. But by then enough damage would have been done.

Neither does the Jan Lokpal proposal advanced by Team Anna make much sense. It’s tantamount to having one element of the bureaucracy in which all anti-corruption powers are centralised. It’s supposed to police the rest of the bureaucracy and everything outside as well. But what’s to prevent this vanguard of the bureaucracy from turning corrupt? Especially because, as the adage goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely? Worse still, what if this vanguard is captured by a group of zealots, who label everything they don’t like as “corrupt”? Given the powers in their hands, they will also be in a position to enforce their writ and harass anyone who disagrees with them.

What would be some decent, alternative solutions to admittedly pressing problems, other than those offered by our total revolutionaries? The caste problem can be cracked in a generation by offering universal education with quality, mid-day meals. Growing up while eating together with other castes would destroy a central prop of caste: the taboo on inter-caste dining. And once the level of education is standardised across castes, there won’t be any need for reservation in jobs and higher education.

As a matter of fact, affirmative action would benefit far more people if pushed down to lower rather than higher levels. I wouldn’t be averse, for example, to thousands of Kendriya Vidyalayas across the country, equipped with the best possible teachers and best resources, where entry is reserved purely for SC/ST children. Given centuries of discrimination faced by lower castes this would be entirely justified. On the other hand, selecting senior bureaucrats on the basis of caste rather than merit would not only hurt governance, it would bring the whole reservations policy into disrepute.

One objection to this course that’s likely to be offered by total revolutionaries would be: a generation is too long a time. We need results quicker. But then reservations have been in place for 2 generations now – with results that even the votaries of reservation don’t seem satisfied with. Now it’s being pressed into new areas that will injure governance and the economy. Universal education with mid-day meals will produce results far quicker, besides lifting governance and the economy.

The fact of the matter is, there’s no magic wand that politicians can wave, which will make caste go away tomorrow. But are there any within the magicians of our political class willing to bell this cat?

So far as corruption goes, an alternative proposal to both the Lokpal and Jan Lokpal bills, advanced by the National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information (NCPRI), would work far better if adopted. The NCPRI proposes an architecture of mutually supportive legislation, rather than a single bill which will deliver a magic bullet, designed to check corruption. It proposes a series of mutually interlocking bodies that will act as a check on each other. At TOI we have worked on a decentralised design which draws on the NCPRI’s model. The advantage of this design is that it envisions a series of mutually interlocking bodies that will act as a check on each other, rather than an over-centralised body like the Jan Lokpal, likely to topple under its own weight.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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After drinking at various disciplinary streams, which included an engineering degree from IIT Kanpur and a doctorate in literature from the University of Pennsylvania, Swagato Ganguly now edits “The Times of Ideas”, the editorial page of the Times of India. He’s fascinated by ideas in all shapes, sizes and guises, whether well-cooked or medium-rare – but especially as they motivate everyday living. He’s also interested in the Indian middle class, in its uniqueness as well as globality. In his view Indian politics is torn between ideological extremes, and would do well to discover a liberal middle. His biggest weaknesses are movies, art, and brewing and sipping a good cup of coffee, for which he gets little time.

After drinking at various disciplinary streams, which included an engineering degree from IIT Kanpur and a doctorate in literature from the University of Pe. . .